Author Archive

And Then There Were None: The Miami Outfield

Five little speckled frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating some most delicious grubs.
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were four green speckled frogs.

The Marlins outfield is a nursery rhyme right now. Going into the season, it was going to be Giancarlo Stanton, Emilio Bonifacio and Logan Morrison patrolling the Miami outfield grass. That’s a young outfield — none of them is older than 30 — with power and speed and patience, for the most part. Sunday night the Marlins started Donovan Solano, Justin Ruggiano and Austin Kearns at those same positions. That’s an old outfield — one of them is under 30 — with very little power, speed, or patience.

They’ve fallen far. Crisis — in this case brought on by a knee surgery for Stanton, a need for Bonifacio on the infield, and a looming knee surgery for Morrison — means opportunity for fantasy players, usually, but in this case, it might just be a crisis.

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Eno Sarris RotoGraphs Chat


Buying for the Stretch Run in Dynasty

Keeping an eye on the future while reloading for the stretch run is just about as difficult in fantasy as it is in real life. The wrinkle is that the fantasy player universe is smaller, so fantasy players deal with stars for the most part. Non-elite or low-level prospects can easily get overvalued — there’s little use for an organizational player or a backup shortstop in fantasy ball, and Double-A separates the real from the Formica.

So I’m really psyched that I traded some of my stars for non-elite prospects this week.

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Donovan Solano: Suddenly Important

Coming into this season, the Marlins had Hanley Ramirez at third base, Omar Infante at second base, and a full outfield. Donovan Solano? Well… he was a mystery. Literally:

Guess Non-Roster Invitees don’t usually register like this. Well, at least now we know where he signed. And especially after Hanley Ramirez and Omar Infante have left town, he looks like the starting third baseman for the Fish. And with Matt Dominguez gone, the team doesn’t have an internal prospect ready to take the job away. The only mystery remaining with this suddenly important Marlin is how he’ll do with all that major league playing time.

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Duda now Demoted, Demonstrates Directives

Lucas Duda has now been demoted to Triple-A Buffalo. His work so far can still demonstrate some lessons for all of us.

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Alexi Amarista as the New Emilio Bonifacio?

Sunday night, Alexi Amarista played a little center field and a little left field. Not so ground-breaking if you consider he’s been doing a lot of this sort of thing recently. Since the All-Star break, Amarista has played at every position other than the third, first, pitcher and catcher. There’s an outside chance that Amarista can put up real value for daily leaguers, in the vein of — but of course not quite exactly like — Emilio Bonifacio.

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Starting Pitcher Consensus Ranks for Second Half

Starting pitchers. Man, there are so many of them. And every week, there’s a no-name that throws a shutout and burns bright for a few days. Those matchstick burns very rarely turn into anything substantial.

And yet we have to wait five days between starts, wondering what the next heaping pile of information will tell us. Imagine if a position player got 30 plate appearances every five days, we’d spend a lot of time thinking about them in between, too. Maybe this is the appeal with fantasy football, eh?

Off-topic. Point is, information about starting pitchers comes in leaps and surges. That makes them particularly tough to rank, but it also provides opportunity.

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Eno Sarris RotoGraphs Chat

Actually, I’ll be here after 1:15 ET, so this is just a placeholder until then. Don’t blame me, blame time zones.


Catcher Consensus Ranks for the Second Half

Rankings week is mercifully drawing to a close, with only the pitchers left for Monday. It makes sense to close the offense with catchers, in a way — they are the least likely position to make an offensive impact on your fantasy team. Sure, middle infielders hit for a worse batting line, but catchers are close, and they accrue fewer plate appearances. Their teams need to watch out for their knees and always employ a tandem at the position — only five catchers are projected to accrue more than 500 at-bats this year by the updated ZiPs, and that’s not a ton. By contrast, there are three first baseman that might crack 600 at-bats, and 21 that should cross the 500 at-bat threshold.

Catchers: not only are they doing it worse, they’re doing it less often. Maybe that’s a boon, actually. Sometimes, especially in two-catcher leagues, it makes sense just to leave that space unfilled. Many of these guys are just going to hurt your team more with every plate appearance.

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Outfielder Consensus Ranks for the Second Half

Phew what a bear. Starting pitchers remain on the docket for Monday, but thankfully only catchers tomorrow. Because there seem like there are about a million outfielders.

Of course, not all of them are any good, especially in a mixed league. And we probably ranked about three times as many as we needed to for mixed leaguers. But at least all the relevant names are here. Even if there are too many to recap in any comprehensive way, they’re here.

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